Germer Gertz Improves Email Security and Staff Productivity with Secure Document Delivery*
By
Susan Whitmire, IT Manager, Germer Gertz, L.L.P.
When you send a document to someone electronically, what’s your preferred tool? Do you turn to FTP? Or perhaps a thumb drive? For many lawyers and legal professionals (and this won’t come as a surprise), the go-to tool is email. Email is easy and lawyers get it. But from an IT perspective, email poses many problems.
Does Send Equal Secure?
Email is so ubiquitous in the workplace that people use it with a false sense of security. Emails can be intercepted or forwarded to unauthorized individuals. There is no remote verification of the recipient. Despite the most stringent security, accounts can be hacked. If you misaddress an email and hit send, recall efforts are next to impossible. And what about email devices? People can now email from desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. How can you ensure email delivery is secure through all devices?
Most importantly, sending medical records and documents via email can cause compliance issues with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The act, which protects individuals’ personal health information, requires entities handling that information to ensure it is secure when stored, delivered or shared. In 2009, HIPAA compliance was extended to associates of healthcare providers, including law firms. If an organization breaches HIPAA compliance, it is open to steep fines, public notification of the breach, and other stiff penalties.
In order to electronically secure medical information and patients’ records, they must be encrypted both at rest and in transit, sent only to authenticated recipients, and be able to demonstrate recall capabilities if misaddressed. Since email doesn’t conform completely to these basic security parameters, sending medical information through it can lead to noncompliance concerns. This wasn’t an option for Germer Gertz.
Read the rest of this case study at http://www.biscom.com/downloads/case-studies/bds/legal_tech_june_2012.pdf.
*This article was originally published by LJN's Legal Tech Newsletter, June 2012. Visithttp://www.lawjournalnewsletters.com/newsletters/home/ljn_legaltech.html to subscribe or learn more.
By Guest Blogger: Susan Whitmire, IT Manager, Germer Gertz, L.L.P.
